Today we are eavesdropping on some conversation between other people.
Think that's good?
Is it even allowed?
In the Bible?
Who's talking?
It might be good for us to gain a
little perspective on our own small egocentric worlds thinking everything
and anything is about us.
We are reading from the book of
Hebrews. And this might surprise you, but the book of Hebrews was actually not
written for you and me. It was written to a specific group of people ...
Can you guess?
It is stated in the
heading
It was directed to Hebrew people.
It was written to them in a time
when they were most severely persecuted and many of them were thinking of
falling back to their DIY ways before the New Testament ... the ways of the
law.
Falling back
doesn't help any one
So, the writer of Hebrews
(possibly Paul) wrote a letter to encourage them to stand strong in The
Way.
The Roman emperor, Nero after
setting Rome on fire in AD 60, accused Christians as evil-doers. Note - He
was accusing not so much the followers of the Jewish law because he knew what
to expect of them. Yet, followers of the newly founded Way in perfect freedom
was all together an uncertainty to him. These people were not set in a law of
some kind and they feared nothing because their Messiah rose from death and
they believed that they themselves will follow suit.
Finding a
common enemy
These Christians offended the
Romans!
Giving honor to a dead crucified
Jewish violated a host of the most serious taboos of both Greek and Roman
religion. Honoring such a person and then claiming that His Spirit was living
inside of every one of His followers made every Christian accuse-able of
disrespecting and insulting the Greek and Roman gods as such. This
kind of behaviour made their good-luck gods to abandon their sanctuaries in
disgust.
Nero rounded the Christians up,
fed them to his hungry beasts in the arena, burned them alive and
mutilated their bodies.
The Hebrew Christians, especially
those in Rome, needed some serious encouragement.
A letter to the
Hebrew Christians was crucial
The letter to the Hebrews comes
with a full executive summary of the whole of God's redemption plan and
beautiful perspective on how the first covenant was replace with perfect new
Testament in favour of all mankind, including messianic Jews who lived in and
around the city of Rome at the time.
A summary of the whole book of
Hebrews is to be found in Hebrews 10.
Today we can learn a lot from the
letter to these people who were do severely persecuted just because they were
Jesus-followers. And that is the reason for our eavesdropping.
The writer of the book of Hebrews
had to remind the believers again that Jesus was the complete fulfillment
of the law, the prophecies, the sacrifices, the feast, the feast days and
everything that pointed towards God redeeming mankind in order to establish a
relationship with him.
Let's read in the
Amplified Bible
Hence, when He
[Christ] entered into the world, He said, Sacrifices and offerings You have not
desired, but instead You have made ready a body for Me [to offer];
In burnt offerings
and sin offerings You have taken no delight.
Then I said,
Behold, here I am, coming to do Your will, O God — [to fulfill] what is written
of Me in the volume of the Book.
When He said just
before, You have neither desired, nor have You taken delight in sacrifices and
offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings — all of which are offered
according to the Law —
He then went on to
say, Behold, [here] I am, coming to do Your will. Thus He does away with and
annuls the first (former) order [as a means of expiating sin] so that He might
inaugurate and establish the second (latter) order.
And in accordance
with this will [of God], we have been made holy (consecrated and sanctified)
through the offering made once for all of the body of Jesus Christ (the
Anointed One). Hebrews 10:5 - 10 [AMP]
The writer of Hebrews was quoting
Psalm 40, as shadow of the whole thing.
Bringing it all
together
The letter to the Hebrews
explains really well how that the Christians back then (and us right now)
should not fall back into the law (and us today by mixing up law and Grace).
Therefore,
believers, since we have confidence and full freedom to enter the Holy Place
[the place where God dwells] by [means of] the blood of Jesus, by this new and
living way which He initiated and opened for us through the veil [as in the
Holy of Holies], that is, through His flesh, and since we have a great and
wonderful Priest [Who rules] over the house of God, let us approach [God] with
a true and sincere heart in unqualified assurance of faith, having
had our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed
with pure water. Hebrews 10:19 - 22 [AMP]
Unqualified
assurance of Faith
The King James Bible
talks about "full assurance of faith".
Remember the post on
Surety (click here) and how we
discovered that Jesus is our faith (click here, and here). Jesus is the
substance of our faith. He is our Faith!